“Joy” is one of the many words I could use to describe the past four days. I am part of a pretty good-sized family, and the past four days two of my sisters and one of my nieces have been helping me to get our house ready to show for sale. It may be the most incredible time I have experienced in my adult life!
Wednesday, My-Sister-The-Nurse came to stay with her grandson. They arrived about 10:30 in the morning, and were here before I returned from grocery shopping. She and I spent the rest of the day packing up a good part of my kitchen. I emptied low shelves and high shelves, and drawers. Utensils, sets of dishes, pots and pans and all sorts of odds and ends were packed away.
Late in the afternoon, my youngest sister, Frankie, and her daughter The Artist, arrived. We put together a meal, and visited, crashing early to be ready to work on Thursday.
Thursday morning I was up at 5:00 and slipped out to work in my herb garden. Frankie snuck up on me before 6:00 and we worked for a while until My-Sister-The-Nurse and The Artist joined us. We cut back chives, sage, lemon balm, lamb’s ears and salvia and gave the oregano a major crew cut. The Artist collected everything in a wheelbarrow and made trip after trip to the back forty.
MSTN was not happy that we’d gotten the jump on her and wanted to do more before lunch, so I asked if she wanted to cut back all the fern fronds that had died in the high heat. She whipped through that bed in no time and everyone began muttering about MULCH!!! We hooked up the sprinkler to soak the bed and I arranged for two yards of mulch to be delivered.
Meanwhile, I sent MSTN off to get more packing boxes, and lunch from Portillo’s. I had to stay for the mulch delivery, so we kept packing things while we waited for her to return. MSTN was really ticked off that it was too hot, MUCH too hot, to be able to spread the mulch. She had to leave it to us to finish what she clearly felt was HER job. Instead, she emptied the china cabinet, while Frankie cleared out the last of my mother’s clothing.
Frankie and The Artist boxed up my parent’s wedding china while MSTN moved on to packing some of the crystal, and the cut glass dishes. There is a small cabinet in my dining room, and it occurred to me that my sisters could help me decide what to do with the contents. That slowed us down for a bit, but we managed to empty it out.
We all worked on dinner, along with Dear Husband. Flank steak, baked potatoes, mushrooms, green beans with bacon, a special salad that Frankie wanted to try, and Portillo’s chocolate cake for dessert. After dessert, MSTN and her grandson had to leave. It was really tough to let them go. It isn’t often that I get to enjoy my family like this, and I really would have liked to have MSTN with us for another day or two.
Friday morning, Frankie and I went out to cover the fern bed with mulch. She filled the wheelbarrow repeatedly, moving a cubic yard of mulch, and dumped it on the bed. I pushed it around, to try to get even coverage. We worked on the gardens at the front of the house, pulling weeds, cutting back iris and spent plants, and planting new plants until the heat of the day drove us in for breakfast.
Dear Husband was rained out for the day, and he came home to collect The Artist to show her a source of wood that she might want to know about for her art classes. Frankie and I had lunch and headed for the basement. Frankie moved two pallets into place and then began bringing down the boxes we had filled on Thursday. I sorted through more things, creating a stack of things to be given away, before crying “Uncle!” I just was saturated with packing, and wanted to go sit and put my feet up.
Dear Husband and The Artist returned, and we popped “Jane Eyre” into the DVD player. It was the version that had been shown as a four part BBC presentation. We made it through almost two hours, took a break to cook dinner, and then returned to watch the remainder of the story. We were all absorbed, right to the very end.
Saturday morning, we got off to a slightly later start. Dear Husband delayed his departure to have breakfast with us, which Frankie cooked. She cleaned out the refrigerator, making an egg casserole, blueberries and papaya, and toast. Frankie and The Artist cleared two more gardens of weeds while I continued to cut back the iris at the sidewalk, a project that will continue for some time.
I’d set the timer to let us know when we had to go in to clean up. MSTN returned to us and we all went off to the French Market in Wheaton. The Artist carried things for all of us as we browsed through the jewelry, bakeries, and veggie stands. I have so much food left from this week that I didn’t buy a lot of veggies, but it was more than enough to weigh her down.
We made the obligatory Starbucks run, and then headed for home. Can you imagine how difficult it was for me to let these women get on with their lives? What an incredible gift they gave me! They saved me a couple weeks of work, and made my life so much easier. How do I ever tell them “Thank you!” enough?